Staff are not a minimum wage commodity. They are the key
touch points with your customer. Retailers say they can not afford to train
them (paying the service provider, paying the staff member while they are not
working and paying the replacement staff member.) I argue that you can’t afford
NOT to train them.

You can’t keep adding impulse items indefinitely. Eventually
it will dilute what you do and when you hit the tipping point your customer
will just think the store is full of crap and you will struggle to win them
back.

All you achieve by piling up stuff in a discount bin at the
front door is showcase your failures and condition your customers to expect
more cheap stuff inside.

The things that made you successful yesterday or even today
will not maintain your success.

NASA may have sent a man to the min on the back of the
cheapest tenderer for every product, but you can’t build your business on the
cheap. Everything that is cheap or free, is cheap or free for a reason.

Stop selling features. Customers don’t care about the
biggest or fastest. They care about how bigger of faster might benefit them.

Stop selling on price – people buy value. Do you drive the
cheapest car you could find? Are all your clothes the cheapest you could find?
99% of people find the product that meets their needs and THEN don’t want to
pay more than it’s worth.

Customers are not thieves. 98% are honest and you should
stop punishing the good ones because of a few bad apples. MOST of your
shrinkage can be attributed to your STAFF. See point #1.

Australians/ Westerners are conditioned to pay full sticker
price. That is good for retailers if consumers act that way, but you don’t have
to act that way with your suppliers. There are at
least 20 things you can negotiate with your suppliers other than price.

A gift has two buyers. The person in front of you in your
store may not be the most important buyer. Understand the person who is NOT
there in order to make a sale.